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Restoration Progress, '52 F-3 Marmon-Herrington With 215 Engine
I said I'd start a thread on this, so here goes. This will be heavy on pictures, and heavy on thanks to those who've helped get the truck to this stage of restoration. Great thanks go to Chuck Mantiglia of Chuck's Trucks. Chuck rebuilt both axles and transfer case, installed his 4.11/1 gear sets, has provided tons of expert guidance, and has been the primary parts supplier. Thanks also goes to my friend Ty Walkup who rebuilt the 215, our friend Owen (1952henry) who rebuilt the Holley 1904, and to Ilya (51panelman) for sharing his 215 experience and for raiding his inventory of "unobtainium" 215 original parts.
The pictures are of the truck today. As can be seen, the current challenge is exhaust system routing. I spent way too much time trying to find the original 215 exhaust schematic/blueprints. This included an unsuccessful trip to the Ford Research Library in Dearborn. The Chassis Catalogs are vague, but Ilya told me he had success on his by showing those drawings to his muffler shop. Since mine is a M-H I suspected there would be modifications needed. I then found Kepich Exhaust in NC, who has the original Walker Muffler specs, so the order was placed. As can be seen, mods will be required to allow clearance of the front differential and transfer case. I will be leaning on my friend Rob Leach, who owns AAA Service in Springfield and who used to manage the local Midas shop, to now custom bend pipes. I am presently waiting for M-H collector Dana Jones to email me pictures of the exhaust in his 215 powered F-3 M-H. When I saw his unrestored truck last summer my impression was that the exhaust was not original to the truck, but I now know different. So, pictures. Stu
Looks great Stu! Keep up the great preservation work on this rare Ford. Stu was kind enough to bring the rolling chassis to Truckfest this past Spring and it was much appreciated. If you know Stu you know he'll do it right. This is museum quality work in progress!
BJ, make sure you use the term "Truckfest" for the Central IL gathering. Doc has the "Truckstock" brand locked up. I will officially state that I'm "leaning in the general direction" of doing "Truckfest" again. We'll talk Truckfest in another thread. Let's keep this one focused on Stu's work!
Thanks guys! You wouldn't think two tone green would be attractive, but it sorta is. Might be a stretch though surrounded by red body work.
This thing has been challenging for reasons I wouldn't have figured on. The M-H aspects I expected, but trying to find good factory pictures of the production 215 was hard. Artists drawings, and Chassis Catalog schematics, but no production pictures. There are pics in one or two of the generic Ford books, but they don't match up with pictures of old original unrestored trucks. Ilya's and Kevin Kessler's are the two that I relied on.
The other thing is oddball parts. Below is the upper radiator pipe that Ilya let me talk out of him. This piece is NLA, and Ilya said he bought the last two he found at one of the vendors. Chuck had one and sent me a tracing of it assuming I could have one made. Problem was the angle of the mandrel bend, I couldn't find a company that could match the tracing. And the legs proved too short to allow exhaust pipe to be bent.
I then found the pipe that Ford substituted for the original. I think it's the 223 piece, but it was way too short. That's when I emailed Ilya. Pictures below. Stu
That is beautiful. I had to look for a while to see how the front drive shaft was getting to the front. You have a lot of stuff going on there.
Great work.
01-06-2014, 04:55 PM
